Leaving Your Mark
by Fanwoman
Summary: Kiba and Akamaru can tell who's real and who's a Zetsu, so they decide to help their allies in differentiating. If they mark enough enemies, maybe they'll be made Hokage! —What can you get from 1000 words? Hopefully a laugh.


SPOILERS: Up to _Naruto_ chapter 558/current, into the war, beyond the current _Naruto__ Shupp_ū_den_.

NOTES: After a recent chapter—in which Kiba shouted that Hinata was in trouble and Neji moved to aid a fake Hinata while Kiba was all, "Where [the heck] are you going? She's this way!"—this idea popped into my head.

DISCLAIMERS: I don't own _Naruto_.

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><p>LEAVING YOUR MARK<p>

The creepy white guys were moderately tough, but the real problem was that there seemed to be an endless number of them. Worse, when night fell, the enemy's evil trick was revealed. The creepy white guys—"Zetsus" some called them—started transforming into the shapes of allies, and not even the perceptive gaze of the Hyūga clan's byakugan could differentiate friend from foe. It was a terrible situation, with everyone suspicious of each other, but Kiba and his canine partner, Akamaru, had a solution!

After his shift guarding the small valley where the Second Division and his portion of the Special Operations Division were resting for the night, Kiba decided to take matters into his own hands. The day had been a tiring, non-stop brawl, and even though playing guard had allowed him to rest a bit, he was still fairly drained and knew his own limits. He couldn't take out all the creepy white guys disguised as allies and still have enough energy to fight the next day, but Kiba and Akamaru could help make it so everyone else could tell who was who!

Slipping past the perimeter, Kiba and and his partner began a slow spiral around the valley and outward. Although their eyes would never be as good as a Hyūga's, their night vision was exceptional, and they flitted through the trees with effortless stealth. Special Operations didn't get much more special than Kiba and Akamaru!

Using their keen sense of smell, they hunted out the locations of all the nearby fakers, because no matter how perfect their imitations of others might be, they all had the same, green, earthy scent, like ripped up ivy and dry fields on a sunny day. With a hand signal to his dog, Akamaru performed the technique they had perfected years earlier to help them find the enemy even when vision was completely blocked. Leap, mark, move along—it was as much effort as a morning practice for them. Heck, it was almost invigorating. Most of the time, the creepy posers didn't even know what had happened, but even when one of them did notice, it wasn't like they could do anything. As sneaky and tough as the Zetsus were, they were none of them as fast as Kiba and Akamaru!

Eventually, Akamaru could do no more, and they headed back to the valley, making sure to approach the guard station with their old genin teammates so they wouldn't be mistaken for Zetsus themselves.

"Don't come any closer!"

Kiba couldn't help but smile at how fierce the kunoichi sounded. She had been so timid when they'd been kids. "Hey, Hinata, it's just us."

"How do we know it's you?" she insisted, her fingers glowing with the deadly offensive technique of her clan.

"How?" The voice of his Aburame teammate, Shino, was as unruffled as ever. "Because they carry the scent of the female kikai beetles I placed on all of you so I might find you if needed. The Zetsus seem to be either incapable of replicating or unaware of the existence of the insects I use."

Kiba gave his teammate a thumbs up for getting one over on the enemy.

"What is going on here?" Hinata's cousin, Neji, had apparently rested enough to get over his earlier, exhaustion-inspired snippiness and was back to his normal stuffiness. Just because he was a Hyūga, a member of the most powerful clan in their village, didn't mean he didn't need to recharge his batteries like everyone else.

"I just solved all our problems." There was no reason for Kiba not to smirk at his success, though all three of them just looked at him blankly.

Tail and head held high with pride, Akamaru suggested he explain what they'd done in more detail.

"Right!" Sweeping his arms wide to indicate the world beyond the valley, Kiba smirked some more. "Akamaru and I used Dynamic Marking on all the fakers for a kilometer in every direction. Now everyone will be able to tell which ones are the enemy!"

Hinata's cheeks colored while her cousin wondered, "Dynamic Marking?"

"It is a technique in which Akamaru urinates on an adversary so the enemy might be more easily found by scent," explained Shino as he raised his arms and sent a swarm of bugs scattering from his sleeves in all directions. "While it is uniquely suitable for dealing with our current dilemma, and I shall take full advantage of the effort, the relative anosmia of regular shinobi compared to Inuzukas will make it largely ineffective."

"Huh?" Kiba didn't quite follow, but he didn't like the gist of Shino's explanation.

"Most of us won't be able to tell who's been marked because we won't be able to smell it," offered Hinata while her cousin wrinkled his nose in what seemed to be disgust.

"No way!" He and Akamaru could have been sleeping instead? "But nobody's piss smells like Akamaru's!"

His dog barked in agreement.

"To you and your clansmen and Shino's kikai beetles, yes." Hinata offered a comforting smile. "To the rest of us it just smells like..."

Akamaru whimpered in defeat, and Kiba immediately gave him a reassuring pat on the head. "It's not your fault they can't tell the difference. Let's go get some water and rest." After all Akamaru had done, he really needed some water, and no Inuzuka worth their salt didn't have their dog's needs constantly in mind.

Shino stepped aside as they passed. "I have already eliminated three of the enemy." Given the symbiotic relationship he had with his chakra-sapping bugs, Shino didn't tire very easily. The more enemies he took out, the more power Shino had. "At this rate, my chakra should be fully replenished by morning."

That cheered both Kiba and Akamaru. "Awesome!" At least they helped _one_ person spot the enemy, and having Shino at top kick-assitude was always a good thing. "Wake us when things heat up again." The war would still be there in the morning. In the meantime, it was nap time!

With renewed confidence, Kiba and Akamaru headed into the valley. If they had to take the fakers out one at a time, then they would. They were young, strong, and Inuzukas—one way or another, by the end of the war, they would leave their mark!

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><p>DETAILS<p>

Yes, the liberal use of exclamation marks was intentional!


End file.
